1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information communication terminal, an information communication system, an information communication method, and an information communication program by which a communication technique (e.g. an Internet Protocol (IP) telephone, IP television telephone) and a data processing technique for acquiring information retained by a server on a network and information on a user terminal to display the information on the screen of the user terminal as well as a recording medium in which such a technique is recorded.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the recent development of information techniques, methods for organically combining various pieces of information such as audio communication, World Wide Web (www) have been developed. Thus, a user has been enabled, through a user terminal for example,    (A) to download, from the Internet or a server on an exclusive network, text, audio, or video information to the user terminal; and    (B) to exchange, via the Internet or an exclusive network, text, audio, or video information among two or more user terminals.
The example (A) allows a user to view a web page on the Internet via a browser.
The example (B) allows a user to have an audio conversation via an IP telephone terminal and an audio or video communication via an IP television telephone terminal.
When a conventional terminal user has tried to download, during an exchange of audio or video information, text, audio, or video information related to the conversation, the user himself or herself inputs a keyword into the terminal to find where the information is stored. This operation is performed simultaneously with the conversation to cause:
a situation where a keyword may be inputted in a wrong manner or may be inputted with a long time; and
a situation where the search of a place where the information is stored may require a long time.
Conventional technique are made in view of the above include the following techniques.
In the first technique, based on speech information sent from a communication terminal to a provider of an exchange facility, a keyword is recognized by a module (e.g., speech recognition module) to send back distribution information suitable for the keyword to the terminal.
The technique as described above is based on an assumption that:
(1) an information common module for supplying distribution information via a communication path must be used and communication must be relayed via an exchange facility provider.
(a) Thus, this conventional technique cannot be applied to communication where terminals have direct communication.
(b) This conventional technique requires an advertisement information database to be established on an exchange facility for performing communication. Thus, a provider for relaying advertisement distribution requires, in spite of its desire to provide only additional information, an exchange facility for call establishment and information exchange to require a facility provider to establish and operate an exclusive exchange facility.
(c) This conventional technique requires user speech information to be analyzed by an exchange facility. Thus, the control of user privacy information depends on an operation policy of the exchange facility provider.
(2) Furthermore, the first technique is characterized in that a keyword obtained by speech recognition itself is not disclosed to a user but additional information related to the keyword is presented and in that only one piece of additional information is presented at the same time. Thus, a user cannot select information that the user really wants. The first technique also fails to provide a system through which a user can select information that the user really wants from among speech recognition results.
The second technique is mainly characterized in that a processing method for providing a call establishment between an originator terminal and a destination terminal subjects call audio from the originator terminal or the destination terminal to speech recognition to search information in a data communication network using the speech recognition result as a search keyword. Then, the search result is sent to the originator data communication terminal or the destination data communication terminal. The conventional technique as described above is characterized in having the following problems.
(1) The second technique works based on an assumption that a telephone exchange system is provided and an exchange facility provider is required to relay a call, causing a similar problem.
(2) The second technique displays keyword-related information only when a match with the keyword is found or when a user desires the information.
The third technique provides a system for the purpose of providing subject information to a plurality of calling party terminals having an established call via a network. This system includes a speech recognition module, an acquisition module for extracting keyword information from among recognition results, and a subject information storage module for storing and controlling subject information suitable for the respective user attributes. This system selects an appropriate subject based on a user attribute and a keyword. The invention intends to provide information with a higher accuracy by controlling user attribute information to consider a user preference and conversation contents. The conventional technique as described above has the following problems.
(1) This technique works based on an assumption that a telephone exchange system is provided and an exchange facility provider relays a call. Thus, the third technique has the same problem as that of the first technique.
(2) This technique requires user preference information to be previously registered in a user information database in an exchange facility provider, failing to prevent the user information from being leaked to an exchange facility operator.
(3) This technique requires a user information database and a subject information database to be previously established on the exchange facility. Thus, information can be provided only from the exchange facility provider.
(4) The third technique is characterized in that a keyword itself obtained by speech recognition is not disclosed to a user but subject information related to the keyword is presented. The third technique is also characterized in that only additional information is presented at the same time. Thus, the user cannot select information that the user really wants. Thus, this technique fails to provide a system through which a user can select information that the user really wants from among speech recognition results.
(1) The third technique is based on an assumption that, as in the first technique, a call must be relayed by a communication processing system provided by an exchange facility provider and speech recognition is performed by the communication processing system provided by the exchange facility provider.
(2) The conventional technique as described above does not disclose a module for providing advertisement information.
(3) The third technique uses a method that does not disclose a keyword itself to a terminal but presents the search result. The third technique does not disclose a module for providing information in the terminal. Thus, a method for presenting information when many keywords are extracted from the conversation of a user is unclear. There also may be a case where a vast amount of search results is displayed at the same, failing to assure that a user can obtain a desired search.
However, the conventional technique had problems as described below.
1) A conventional user cannot obtain, during an exchange of audio video information (e.g., during conversation using an IP telephone terminal, an IP television telephone terminal, or a mobile terminal for example), additional information or advertisement information so long as the user himself or herself performs an input via a keyboard for example or a search for a place storing the information for example.
Furthermore, the conventional technique had difficulty in providing information highly interesting to a user without hindering a smooth communication with a conversation partner and only through conversation.
Furthermore, the conventional technique also had difficulty in providing information suitable for a user without depending on speech recognition accuracy.
Furthermore, when the conversation includes a plurality of pieces of additional information and advertisement information, information that the user really wants was difficulty selected.
(2) (Securing of User Privacy)
All of the above conventional techniques extract a keyword by allowing an exchange facility to analyze audio video information exchanged between terminals. Thus, “secret of communication contents” between terminals is not technically guaranteed. This causes user privacy protection to depend on the policy of an exchange facility operator, failing to eliminate anxiety of the user.
Furthermore, the conventional technique had difficulty in providing a module for providing suitable additional information and advertisement information to a user without providing all information for conversation contents.
(3) The conventional audio exchange is based on an assumption that an exchange system exclusive for telephone is provided. A publication relating to a conventional technique is also based on an assumption that a module for providing information is provided on an exclusive exchange facility. Thus, “business for providing information suitable for conversation contents” could not be realized without having an exclusive audio exchange facility.
Furthermore, a method for realizing IP telephone and IPTV telephone using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and H.323 in recent years is not always based on an assumption that call establishment between audio and video communication system terminals (exchange of address information) as well as exchange of audio and video information after call establishment are realized by a telephone-exclusive exchange system. However, this method requires a facility provider to structure and operate an exclusive exchange facility. Furthermore, some facility providers have operation policies requiring users to pay the cost.
Furthermore, current audio and video communication services do not have a function to display advertisement related to the conversation. Thus, users have been prevented from having an opportunity to obtain service and article information related to call contents to use the information as required. Furthermore, advertisers also have been prevented from having an opportunity to provide services and to sell articles.